To begin with, on Thursday (6 November), notorious thug-“protester” Bassem Masri tweeted that the U.S. Justice Department had contacted him the day before to invite him to a meeting on “police reform.” In his words, they wanted to hear his ideas.

Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit) notes that Masri is a “criminal cop-hater and Hamas supporter,” which does pretty much sum the guy up if you follow through with the most cursory search on him.

At one point you can hear Masri tell officers, while pointing at each one, “I’m praying for your death and your death and your death and your death.”

This video clip shows him praising Hamas.

The Fox affiliate in St. Louis did a profile of him, including an interview in which he “argues” (I hesitate to use the word) that since the police work for him, it’s his right to threaten them with death and try to provoke them.

This is the guy the Obama-Holder justice department wants to meet with, to get his ideas on police reform.

I have no doubt that it’s this group, the DOJ’s Community Relations Service, that’s inviting thugs and agitators to such a sit-down. The CRS is the little DOJ “service” that organized and facilitated protesters in the Trayvon Martin case in 2013. Its M.O. is to “mediate” between local authorities and “protesters”: i.e., anyone who claims to have a grievance. And “mediate” can turn into “shakedown” at any time.

DOJ has appointed a few of us2reform the police in the entire region that should resonate nationwide thats the director intentions #Ferguson — Bassem Masri (@bassem_masri) November 7, 2014

We should be looking for that – looking for a shakedown of Ferguson, of the county, of the state of Missouri, of local business and property owners (but also of the entire country; see Masri’s tweets) – especially if the grand jury considering the federal civil-rights charges against Officer Darren Wilson comes back with a no-bill. That’s reportedly likely, and given that the Missouri murder case against him apparently won’t make it past the grand jury either, the heat will be on for Holder’s department to squeeze something out of somebody.

DOJ said the Administration is FULLY aware of the national anger against law enforcement&going2use the reform on a national level #Ferguson

A meet with a high-profile agitator like Masri would thus be a venue in which to find out what kind of punitive swipes at others will satisfy his “fury.” The DOJ may not be able to corrupt the grand jury process – it has to deal with a bunch of jurors and sworn officers of the court, after all – but it has other, less supervised or accountable ways to inflict hurt on a community. That’s the beauty of public bureaucracies: they give you incredible shakedown leverage, all in the hands of an unsupervised executive.

List of demands

The government stamp of approval on this syndicate-crime process creates all the sense of empowerment needed for the “protesters” to issue a list of demands to the law enforcement authorities, in advance of the riots they are clearly planning when the grand juries report out.

The list of demands is patently ridiculous, but some items on it are even more ridiculous than others. (This is another way of saying the thug-“protesters” are Bolsheviks, trying to negotiate advantages for themselves in a planned street confrontation.)

7) Police will wear only the attire minimally required for their safety. Specialized riot gear will be avoided except as a last resort. …

14) Strategically, police commanders will allow protests to take and occupy larger and more disruptive spaces than would normally be tolerated, and will allow occupation of those spaces for longer periods of time than would normally be tolerated. …

15) Police will be instructed to be tolerant of more minor lawbreaking (such as thrown water bottles) when escalating the use of force.

Well, sure. But why go through the charade? Why not just demand that police surrender in advance and let protesters loot, destroy, and kill as much as they want? The police aren’t the real target anyway. Public order and the safety of ordinary citizens is the target.

Putting bounties on the Wilson family

The “protesters” showed their hand on Sunday when a group calling itself RbG Black Rebels announced a $5,000 bounty on Darren Wilson (and $1,000 bounty on any of his family members). The bounties are offered for “finding” Wilson or a family member.

* UPDATE *: The RbG Black Rebels Twitter account was suspended some time on 11 November, which is why the full tweet frame, with user image, doesn’t display for you below. (The account was undoubtedly suspended because of the threat to Officer Wilson and his family.) The tweets were originally embedded from the account, and I will leave them here as long as the text is still displayed. If the tweets get scrubbed, I have a screen grab and will insert that instead so you can read the text of each tweet.

The find Darren Wilson bounty is starting at $5k. Paid by RbG BR & local investor. Looking for current location to ask him a few questions — RbG Black Rebels (@BlackRebels_Stl) November 9, 2014

Its no secret we looking for Darren Wilson or any of his close relatives. 5k has been offered to locate him 1k per close family members

But they aren’t convincing to me as a “local” militant group, at least not if “local” is meant to indicate the St. Louis metro. Their first tweet wasn’t until 24 August (15 days after Michael brown was shot), and the trend of their tweets is generically political more than focused on specific protest events and local issues. A lot of Black Panther references and videos, Malcolm X, Anonymous, and other allusions with national-network overtones. On 28 October, they tweeted this:

We got #RbG soldiers coming from philly, chi town, ny & La… This aint a game. We fighting against this corrupt police state, stand wit us

RbG Black Rebels styles itself a “Political Action Group & Urban Militia,” and proudly posts the name of its “Minister of Defense,” Zulu Gaddafi. Perhaps the DOJ has overlooked it as a resource for the police-reform shakedown board.

J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard.

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